Sveum accepts offer to manage Cubs

Dale Sveum has some big-league managerial experience. He guided the Brewers for 12 games at the end of the 2008 regular season and playoffs after Ned Yost was fired. (Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press)

He'll be introduced at a 9 a.m. CT news conference on Friday at Wrigley Field.

Sveum replaces Mike Quade, who was fired after the season by Theo Epstein, the team's new president of baseball operations. The Cubs finished 71-91 after a disappointing season that extended their infamous championship drought to 103 seasons.

The 47-year-old Sveum also had interviewed with Boston, where he was the Red Sox third base coach in 2004 and 2005, but they hadn't offered him a job through Wednesday.

Epstein and Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer worked with Sveum in Boston.

Sveum has strong knowledge of the Cubs — the Brewers' National League Central rivals — having spent six seasons in Milwaukee. He also lives Scottsdale, Ariz., which is near the Cubs’ spring training facility in Mesa.

Sveum has some big-league managerial experience. He guided the Brewers for 12 games at the end of the 2008 regular season and playoffs after Ned Yost was fired.

With the hiring of Sveum, there will no doubt be some criticism tossed his way in Chicago. In Boston, Sveum was criticized for his aggressive approach that resulted in runners cut down at the plate.

"The thing about when I was judged as a third base coach, you get scrutinized," he said. "I'm not a passive person. I'm a very aggressive person and always have been."